


With Diamond-Like Precision

by LadyShadowphyre



Series: With/Without [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Uriel/Lucifer, Background implied Lucifer/Kelly Kline, Jewish Grandma Winchester, Jewish Winchesters, John Winchester's A+++ Parenting, Lucifer (Supernatural) Being an Asshole, Lucifer (Supernatural) is called Lucien, M/M, Past Political Racism, Protective Bobby Singer, Rich Winchesters (Supernatural), Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Uriel (Supernatural) Being an Asshole, Uriel is Only An Asshole Because Lucifer Is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-13 16:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21180335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: If there was one thing Castiel Gotteskrieger knew for certain in this world, it was that everything happens for a reason. The reason might not always be obvious, but it was there; one could hardly think otherwise in a world with mystical timers on people's wrists counting down to the moment they would meet their soulmate.  But there was something to be said for the theory that Fate sometimes has an odd sense of humor.





	With Diamond-Like Precision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zetal (Rodinia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/gifts), [AltyEx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltyEx/gifts).

> **Written for the SPN Song Challenge Bingo square:** "No Scrubs" by TLC  
**Written for the SPN Good Things Happen Bingo square:** Soulmates

**I**F THERE WAS one thing Castiel Gotteskrieger knew for certain in this world, it was that everything happens for a reason. It might not be immediately obvious what those reasons were, but in a world where people were born with a mystic clock tattooed to their wrist counting down the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until each person met their soulmate, he figured there had to be some grand cosmic reason behind everything, even when it didn't seem to make much sense.

Case in point: Uriel Tadarusati being soulmates with Castiel's older brother Lucien. It had seemed incomprehensible when twelve-year-old Lucien's clock had beeped in time with Uriel's when the barely-five-year-old had accidentally barrelled into Lucien's legs at a holiday gala. Lucien, being twelve and convinced that he was entirely too mature to play with even his younger siblings, had wanted nothing to do with the "baby", but Uriel's parents had insisted on bringing him and later his older sister Raphael over to the Gotteskrieger manor for regular playdates so that the young soulmates could get used to each other. After three consecutive such instances where Lucien rudely left Uriel by himself to go hide in his room, Castiel - being the closest in age to Uriel - had taken pity on the boy as only a six-year-old can and started inviting him to play.

Which of course led to Castiel being the only person Uriel felt he could talk to now, twenty years later, when Lucien was finally starting to pay some positive attention to his younger soulmate... by asking him to be one of his groomsmen while he married someone else.

"It's not as if he even loves the woman," Uriel huffed, scowling into the middle distance as he strode along the sidewalk, ignoring the flow of other pedestrians around them. "He's only marrying her because his affair with her resulted in her pregnancy. I don't see why he would compound the insult to our bond by insisting I participate in this ceremony as if I approve of it taking place!"

"Perhaps he's counting on you to object and disrupt the ceremony with a public spectacle over your soulmate marrying someone else so he doesn't have to go through with it?" Castiel suggested, but it was weak and from the glare Uriel shot him his friend knew it. "It's not in any way a fair situation, certainly not to you. Lucien may be my brother, but he's--" What was that phrase he'd heard Gabriel use? Ah, yes. "--a colossal bag of dicks, and you deserve better than to have him ignore you for years and take your bond for granted."

"Then why are we?" Uriel huffed with a show of irritation that did not quite hide the pained vulnerability beneath the bluster. "If I deserve better than how he treats me, why would Fate bond me to him in the first place?"

"Maybe Fate thought you'd be a good influence on him?" Castiel suggested. "Or maybe you're supposed to tell him off and tell him to come talk to you when he's ready to respect you and your bond instead of treating you so poorly."

"And disappoint both our families with my lack of loyalty to our bond on top of his?" Uriel demanded, scowling harder.

"It's not a lack of loyalty to demand he give you the bare minimum of respect as a person even if he can't bring himself to treat you like a proper soulmate," Castiel argued, but he could tell Uriel was no longer listening. Well, he had tried. "What was the name of the cafe where Gabriel asked us to meet him?"

"_Cafe Intermezzo_," Uriel said with a sniff. "Pedestrianly pretentious, if you ask me."

Castiel hadn't, and he actually thought the name was pretty clever for a cafe meant to be a place for taking a brief interlude in your day to relax and enjoy a momentary respite with a drink and perhaps even a pastry or sandwich, but Uriel's mood was already sour enough without arguing. Instead, he nodded to the cream and coffee-coloured sign with flourished letters ahead of them. "It appears we've arrived. Come on, a proper cup of coffee will do you some good, and we can have a nice talk with Gabriel that has nothing whatsoever to do with soulmates or timers or weddings."

"If only," Uriel groaned as they stepped inside. "You know how impossible it is to get Gabriel to shut up about his own perfect soulmate. We'll be fortunate if he talks about anything else at all!"

Castiel sighed.

**S**AM WINCHESTER BELIEVED in Fate about as much as the average person. In a world with predetermined soulmates, it was difficult not to believe at least a little, but he also believed that Fate was open to interpretation. After all, he'd seen first-hand that not all soulmate pairs worked out the way everyone seemed to expect them to, and that was mostly because of choices each person made. John Winchester's choice not to get help for his PTSD from Vietnam had nearly destroyed his marriage to Mary Campbell after Mary had defied her parents to marry John even though they didn't approve simply because she believed that strongly in their bond. Losing Mary to the house fire when Sam was six months old had nearly driven John over the edge, and for a long time Sam and his brother Dean had lived in a series of motels and the family car while their father chased his demons across the country and down a bottle until their psuedo-uncle, Bobby Singer, had given John a literal kick in the pants and made him get actual help.

Sam wouldn't say that life necessarily got better after that, but he and Dean got some stability, and Sam had actual support from his family when he earned a full-ride scholarship to Stanford University in addition to several other acceptance letters and partial scholarships from other Ivy League universities in the country. John had nearly started shouting about how Sam leaving for college was abandoning the family, but Bobby and Dean had helped Sam talk John down and get him to accept that Sam leaving to get an extended education did not mean he was leaving _them_ . It didn't make it any easier on Sam when John was admitted to the hospital for the late stages of cancer which he'd been ignoring, but it did mean he'd been able to fly out from California to be there for Dean when John finally lost the battle to live, and Dean had been the one to convince Sam to go back to school. He had Uncle Bobby and his job at the garage and he could always call or drive out to see Sam. He'd be fine. _They_ would be fine.

Of course, he'd also seen Fate throw its share of curve balls at unsuspecting people. His brother Dean had turned twenty-five while Sam was at Stanford and promptly had his life turned upside down with the arrival of family lawyers-- from _both_ sides of their family. Mary had been disinherited by her parents for marrying John, an attempt by Samuel and Deanna Campbell to keep "that alcoholic drifter" from getting control of the Campbell fortune and wasting it on his vices according to the lawyers, but that didn't extend to her sons. With John dead and Dean having reached his majority, there was no reason not to allow him control over his trust fund.

_"I have a trust fund, Sammy. What the ever loving fuck?!"_

On the Winchester side, the lawyer had explained about Henry Winchester's disappearance under mysterious circumstances which had tied up the family fortune for several decades. Henry's wife, Mildred, had bitterly told John that Henry had simply abandoned them, which had made John very bitter towards his father, but the truth was quite a bit more difficult to believe and was only coming to light now because the relevant documents had finally been declassified. Henry had been working for the CIA during World War II, unbeknownst to the public or even to his wife. When his position was compromised, his Jewish immigrant wife was the primary suspect of the CIA's internal investigation and the freezing of their accounts had not been corrected even after she was cleared of suspicion.

_"Political racism. You know, now I'm even more glad you decided we should be Jewish instead of letting Pastor Jim talk you into becoming Catholic or some shit."_

_"Dean, you're an atheist."_

_"So? S'not like being Jewish and being an atheist are mutually exclusive."_

And then came the third curve ball: Sam had a similar trust fund from the Campbell family, of which he would gain control when he turned twenty-five, and a partial-control academic trust fund from the Winchester family besides the even split of Henry Winchester's assets between him and Dean. _That_ one had given Sam headaches and led to him spending several hours in meetings with his academic advisor and the Stanford financial board and scholarship committee to determine how this sudden inheritance impacted his scholarship and the financial aid he'd applied for after his father's death to help with law school. The end result had been that he kept his scholarship as it was, but the money for law school would come at least partially from the academic trust fund. How much that was would depend on how well his interview went, but for the first time since he'd begun applying to colleges and universities back in high school Sam felt like he could relax and focus more on his studies and getting the most out of his classes rather than worrying about where the money to pay for them was coming from.

Which led to the fourth curve ball. Because of the hold on the Winchester finances and the stipulations in Samuel Campbell's will regarding the trust funds for his daughter's children and the distribution of the remainder of the family fortune, much of the money had been languishing in banks and stock portfolios earning money and collecting interest to the point where the combined Campbell-Winchester fortune put Sam and Dean in the top five richest families in the country. Neither one of them had been prepared for that, and it had taken a lot longer for them to figure out how to handle the inevitable notoriety that kind of money was going to get them, whether they liked it or not.

For that conversation, Dean had bitten the bullet, downed half a bottle of whiskey, and gotten on a plane out to Palo Alto so he and Sam could hash things out in person. There'd been more whiskey, and pizza delivery, and more whiskey, and then coffee, at which point they'd finally managed to decide that the easiest way to deal with it would be to separate "Dean Michael and Samuel William Campbell-Winchester" from "Sam and Dean" as much as possible. Sam was a student at Stanford Law. Dean was a mechanic at Detroit Total Auto Care and Body Works. The Campbell-Winchester Brothers were a meticulously crafted pair of public personas drawing on Dean's natural charisma and Sam's years of acting lessons, the resulting effect combining to create a polished charm and dignified reserve that kept the wealthy elite they were now obligated to occasionally meet with during corporate meetings or fundraiser galas at a respectful distance without alienating anyone directly. Dean, as the elder brother, was more of a target than Sam, but that worked in their favor given their own strengths for the roles they'd adopted.

The one thing they had both decided on unanimously was their Official Position on the subject of their timers. Society matches were not welcome to be broached because both brothers were determined to wait for their soulmates. No exceptions. Dean had commissioned a leather worker he'd met through the garage to make him and Sam matching wristbands of braided and tooled leather that completely covered the mystical clocks on their wrists so as not to draw attention to the numbers counting down and invite speculation about how soon they would be meeting their perfect match. Speculation was inevitable, of course, but so long as they wore those bracelets to every official function to which the Campbell-Winchesters were invited it was kept to a playful minimum. They also never wore the bracelets in their day to day lives, but then their public personas were so far removed from "Sam and Dean" that the only people curious about them were already friends or family.

And then Dean had met his soulmate.

_"He's amazing, Sammy! I gotta say, I never thought I'd be into a dude instead of a chick, but for Gabe I'll more than make an exception!"_

And to be fair, Sam had never heard his brother sound so happy to talk about another person who wasn't Sam himself. The little brother in him might have been a bit jealous that Dean had found his other half, but mostly Sam was just happy his brother was happy.

It was also why he was currently in Detroit for the weekend rather than spending it studying and revising for his second run at the California bar exam in case he failed the first time through. The way Dean and Gabriel had met had ensured that Dean knew his soulmate wasn't with him for his money, especially since Gabriel had plenty of his own, but officially "Gabriel Gotteskrieger" and "Dean Michael Campbell-Winchester" were still in negotiations regarding their formal engagement. In reality, Sam had flown out to Detroit to be Dean's Best Man because Society might want to force them to "do things right" by having a socially acceptable engagement and big fancy wedding, but Dean and Gabe were perfectly happy to elope at the courthouse provided their respective favorite little brothers could be there as witnesses.

Dean had picked Sam up from the airport and taken him to go shopping for his and Gabriel's rings, mostly for moral support than because he needed Sam's help choosing. The engraved platinum bands with a single carat diamond surrounded by the spokes of a compass would pass well enough as engagement rings to the rest of Society while being perfectly functional wedding rings today. The plan had been to go from getting the rings to meet up with Gabriel and his brother Castiel at _Cafe Intermezzo_, about three blocks from the courthouse, but then Dean had gotten a text from Gabriel saying that Castiel was bringing his best friend who needed a distraction from his own soulmate issues. Dean hadn't minded, but Sam had pointed out that if the friend needed to be distracted from soulmate business, maybe his attending a wedding between happy soulmates wouldn't be a good idea.

So it was that Dean dropped Sam off in front of _Cafe Intermezzo_ before heading on to the courthouse to start the paperwork while Sam met up with Gabriel and scoped out the situation with Castiel and Uriel. Out of reflex, Sam checked his watch as Dean sped off. He was maybe one minute late for the time Gabriel had set to meet up, which was fine. Then his eyes caught a completely different set of numbers and Sam sucked in a sharp breath.

His timer had twenty seconds left on it.

The idea that he would meet his soulmate was never a question - his timer had been counting down, same as Dean's, since the moment it first manifested on his arm. Ever since the Inheritance Debacle and the wristbands, he and Dean hadn't exactly ignored their timers, but they'd gotten out of the habit of checking them, and even with Dean having met Gabriel already the thought of Sam meeting his soulmate was still subconsciously a far-off "someday". Now, it was not just no longer "someday", it was _today_, and pretty close to _now,_ and Sam was supposed to be meeting his about-to-be-brother-in-law before attending the wedding that would make Gabriel his actual brother-in-law and he was suddenly going to meet his own soulmate and how could he derail his brother's big day with the inevitable drama that was going to crop up with him meeting his soulmate _now_\--

He was so distracted by his timer counting inexorably down to zero that he completely missed the way his feet had carried him inside the cafe until he was colliding with another person and their hot coffee cascaded down his front.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry!" a low tenor voice exclaimed. Sam looked up--

_BEEP-BEEP_ went two timers.

**T**O SAY THAT Castiel was astonished when his apology to the tall man he'd stumbled into and splashed with coffee was interrupted by the simultaneous beeping of their respective timers accompanied by the unmistakable flare of tingling warmth across his wrist would be a massive understatement. He stared up into his soulmate's eyes, stunned speechless. Of all the possible ways he had imagined meeting his soulmate - and oh, he had definitely imagined it, though he'd kept those private dreams a secret from Uriel for obvious reasons - it had never occurred to him that he might meet his other half by running into them and spilling hot coffee all over their clothes like a clumsy idiot.

"I'm sorry," he said again, his voice sounding strangely breathless. "Are you injured? Please, allow me to replace your clothes--"

"A couple of twenties should more than cover it," Uriel interrupted Castiel with a condescending sneer. "Even buying them new instead of at the local thrift store."

"Uriel!" Castiel tore his eyes away from his soulmate to glare at his friend, aghast at Uriel's rudeness. The cafe was mercifully unpopulated aside from a handful of customers, but this was still a public place and this was Castiel's _soulmate_. "That is completely--"

"_True_, Castiel, and don't bother pretending otherwise," Uriel interrupted again. "Do your charitable deed for the day if you must, but kindly keep your dignity and self-respect about you rather than play as if this uncouth ragamuffin is anyone you would spare a thought over under normal circumstances."

"--uncalled for," Castiel seethed, knuckles white on the empty ceramic mug in his hands. He had never felt the urge to punch Uriel in the face so strongly as he did now, and it was with effort that he restrained himself to a biting, "And I might have hoped my best friend would have the decency not to embarrass me in front of my soulmate."

"You should thank me for having the sensibility to nip this farce in the bud before you embarrass _yourself_," Uriel drawled, clearly warming to the topic now that he had been given an unintended excuse. "I'd had my doubts before, but clearly this entire 'soulmate' business about these ridiculous timers is utter nonsense. You can't possibly think you could go before your father and introduce this pathetic cretin--"

"It's _cretin_, actually," the tall man broke in, his tone remarkably mild for someone on the receiving end of Uriel's unflattering diatribe. Seeing he had their attention, the man added with a slight smirk, "If you're going to insult me, at least do me the courtesy of using correct pronunciation."

"You _dare_\--" Uriel began, only to be interrupted by a burst of wild laughter coming from where Gabriel had been waiting at a table for four and was now very clearly unable to suppress his amusement at the situation any longer. Castiel felt as if it would be a blessing to have the floor open up and swallow him into the abyss. Uriel, however, was incensed, and stormed over towards Castiel's brother with an irate, "What on earth are you laughing at?!"

"I'm so sorry," Castiel mumbled, turning back to look up at his soulmate with trepidation. "My friend is having a rough time with his own soulmate... He's not usually so...."

"Abrasive?" the man offered, raising an eyebrow, though the small smile remained. "I'm sure he isn't, and you don't need to apologize, for him or for the coffee. I was..." He shook his head and gave a rueful glance down at his wrist. "Distracted."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said again, his cheeks warming when the man's eyebrow went back up. "I could have at least had the courtesy to douse us both instead of just you."

"But then we'd both have to change," the man pointed out, his smile growing enough to cause dimples to appear. Castiel felt as if he were being smiled upon by the Sun God himself. Those incredible eyes flicked towards where Uriel was trying unsuccessfully to demand answers, and Castiel's eyes followed to see that his still-laughing brother had migrated out of his chair to the floor in his mirth. Castiel looked back at his soulmate, poised to apologize again, only to find the man watching the scene with a look of fond exasperation. Before Castiel could wonder too much at that, the man proceeded to break his brain by calling out, "Gabe, quit laughing and get up! You should probably text your soon-to-be-husband that we're going to be a little late."

Castiel felt his world narrow in on him and the edges of his vision dim. Distantly, he could see Uriel whirling around with a scowl only to draw up short, his face going ashen as he processed everything that had just been said while Castiel felt himself stuck on the last word. Bad enough that he was making such a horrible first impression on his soulmate by their meeting being a collision and spilling coffee on him followed by Uriel's awful rudeness, but that he was also making his soulmate and his... brother... "...Late?"

"I'm sorry," the man turned back to Castiel and offered his hand along with a gentle smile. Castiel dazedly pried one of his own hands off his mug to clasp the proffered hand as his soulmate went on, "Our introductions got a bit sidetracked, didn't they? I'm Sam Winchester. My brother Dean is eloping with your brother today and we're meant to be their witnesses... at least, we are once I replace my clothes," he added with a soft chuckle. "'Courthouse casual' is one thing, but I probably shouldn't show up wearing someone else's coffee to our brothers' wedding."

"No, of course not," Castiel responded as the world snapped back into focus. Clothes. Coffee. Those were things he could handle while he let his brain process everything else. He started to reach for his phone to look for the nearest department store, only to be stopped by the mug still in the hand not being held by Sam's. "Ahh..."

"Why don't we see about getting you another cup of coffee to go, and then you can come with me to help me choose something new to wear?" Sam suggested with a reappearance of those dimples. "Gabe--"

"Yeah, yeah, Samsquatch, I'll let Dean-o know what the delay is," Gabriel managed to get his laughter under control enough to wave them off with a grin. "You two go on, just don't have so much fun in the dressing rooms you forget about us!"

..._Samsquatch?_ Well, no doubt about his brother's familiarity with his soulmate, and that was a thought he did not want to contemplate too closely right now even if it did manage to distract him from the implications of Gabriel's words until Sam said in mildly reproachful tones, "That's hardly an appropriate activity before we've even had a first date, Gabe."

"Worked for me!" Gabe parried with a cheerful grin and a waggle of his eyebrows. Uriel was starting to look ill.

Castiel felt faint.

"That was Dean," Sam said, tone as firm as the arm that had somehow ended up around Castiel's shoulders. The companionable contact was unusual, given how reserved his family tended to be even with each other, but Castiel decided that he liked it. He daringly leaned into Sam's side as his soulmate continued, "This is me. And I, at least, would like to get to know my soulmate beyond what I've heard from you through my brother and let _him_ get to know _me_ before we think about getting to know each other in any other manner."

"You're perfect for each other," Gabriel said, pointing at them, and Castiel felt his cheeks heating up again, this time from pleasure at the sincerity he could hear beneath the sarcasm. "Go on, get out of here. Uri! Come talk to me, kiddo, let's have ourselves a nice chat while those two sort themselves out, eh?"

Sam's arm tightened just a little around Castiel's shoulders. He looked away from his rather trapped and uncomfortable best friend and up into the kind eyes of his soulmate who leaned in to murmur, just loud enough for Castiel to hear him over the thunder in his ears, "Ready to get that coffee and get out of here?"

"God, yes."

**=End=**

**Author's Note:**

> "Cafe Intermezzo" does exist, technically, in Atlanta, Georgia, up near the 285 perimeter. It's not, to my knowledge, within walking distance of a courthouse, but it does have an excellent menu selection of coffee, tea, and pastries or cakes.


End file.
